i. ceasefire in syria's eastern good and in failure for a second day the rest is read conciliation center says that terrorist shelling is preventing hundreds of civilians from actually leaving the enclave. russian olympic committee confirms that the country has been reinstated as an i.o.c. member that after remaining drugs tests from the winter olympics proved to be negative . and another new south africa's parliament has passed a motion that could see the entire white population stripped of their land and without compensation.

very good evening to you my name is neil harvey this is r.t. international. a humanitarian pause in syria's eastern ghouta has been broken by terrorists for a second day according to the syrian reconciliation center now this is after safety code all that was set up by russia came under heavy shelling from militants thus present preventing civilians from actually leaving the besieged district the situation in the enclave was discussed at a un security council meeting. the assad regime and their supporters have been pummeling eastern ghouta where four hundred thousand people live under siege and constant bombardment needs to be understood and still legitimate targets of military operations russia iran and the assad regime are not even trying to hide their intentions they are asking civilians to leave eastern good to on the false premise that they can then attack anyone left in the area as much as they would like you who sets up temporary sets and once the civilians ambulances. because

we've been through this before we know what russia will say today when you know you don't know they will say that there are terrorists in eastern guta so the assad regime can bomb as ferociously and indiscriminately as it wants and kill as many civilians as it wants i want to ask you so what do you do to implement the resolution with the assad regime should not get to bomb and starve its own people into submission under the guise of counterterrorism this russian argument makes a mockery of this council and international law but did you notice those who consider a moderate opposition did you persuade them to stop shelling and say can people hostage this council must not fall for russia's misdirections. course want to kill him or ping was following the discussion there he joins me on the line from new york and we just saw some of the cuts and thrust. take us through what else of interest was. well after we heard reports on the

humanitarian situation on the ground from various u.n. officials two representatives from there we then heard from the different countries that are represented on the u.n. security council we heard some very heated comments from a deputy representative of the united states she made some accusations against syria and russia this is what she said. russia has announced a daily five hour humanitarian pause in the it's in the aerial bombing of civilians in eastern. this is senekal callous and in flagrant defiance of the demands of twenty one. now this is all in reference to eastern ghouta this is a enclave it's a rebel held territory controlled by the rebels and terrorist groups that want to overthrow the syrian government and they control this area to the east of damascus now russia's president vladimir putin actually recently commented on the situation and pointed out that it's been widely ignored in international media that this area

this enclave is being used to attack damascus where many many civilians are located this is russia's president talking about eastern ghouta. would you know where the fish are in yuma look on fortunately there are lots of extremist forces in the east and good to risk what is a range of terror organizations recognized by the un the shelling is continually coming from that area on some days the number of missile strikes and moved to charlotte which is fifty to eighty they even reached the territory of the russian embassy should we tolerate this indefinitely of course not. now various initiatives to protect civilians in that area have failed there was a five hour humanitarian pause in the fighting there's now been a un security council resolution passed for the purpose of adopting a ceasefire for thirty days but essentially the situation in this humanitarian enclave is rather dire people are suffering i mean it's people are people are dying

in mass but essentially the nostra terrorists and the rebels that want to overthrow the government are not allowing people to get out through the humanitarian corridor now opposition forces in syria did send a letter to the un security council saying that they would allow civilians to get out through the humanitarian corridor and get away from the fighting and be protected however based on what we have seen on the ground what we've heard from the russian center for reconciliation in syria this hasn't happened and civilians have been killed over three hundred civilians have been attacked as they've been trying to leave and have been forced to stay in this air rebel held enclave in eastern guta now furthermore we heard from the russian envoy to the u.n. security council and when he addressed the council he made the point that there seems to be all of this humanitarian outrage about the situation and he but yet when the u.s. led coalition a leveled the city of raka there was no such humanitarian outrage there seems to be

selective outrage when it comes to civilian deaths this is what he had to say i do because. when you have the leverage. it's be months since. the c.c. or through. the security council because the circuit to your new groups produces too soon the mission who says that in news there. now furthermore the russian representative went on to point out that it this point humanitarian concerns are primary but this heated rhetoric from the international community is not helping the situation it's only inflaming the tensions and it's not getting toward a political solution to the crisis in syria now furthermore it is important to note that when u.s. led operations were taking place in iraq as well as in mosul in iraq there were

a huge number of humanitarian casualties but we actually heard u.s. leaders say that civilian deaths were simply a fact of life were completely acceptable let's quickly review what happened when the city of raka in syria and the city of mosul in iraq were attacked by u.s. led coalition forces. casualties or a fact of life in iraq and in syria people are much more accepting that because it's their city being liberated they understand where they were suffering civilians will get caught in the crossfire civilians will get hurt civilians will get killed if you want to liberate your towns and cities it comes at a price unavoidable part of war and commanders have to press on despite that the responsibility for civilian casualties in iraq and syria lies with isis that is on them not on us that we are the good guys and munitions people on the battlefield know the difference. now we also heard from the representative of the

syrian arab republic who had the right to address the meeting as the meeting was discussing his country syria and he addressed the meeting and warned about the use of chemical weapons by terrorist forces that are operating in syria he talked about a school that is essentially being used as a warehouse for chemical weapons so a lot of heated rhetoric was exchanged all parties agreed that humanitarian life in eastern guta and all of syria should be protected civilians should be protected however there is a pretty clear disagreement between different countries about who's to blame for the situation in syria with some countries putting everything squarely on the shoulders of the syrian government and russia other countries saying that there needs to be a political solution and there needs to be a reconciliation of the situation and that intensifying the rhetoric and putting blame on different countries and you know leveling these extreme accusations is not really going to help the situation for the syrian people clearly some heated discussion there at the u.n. many thanks of course with bring is right up to date. course one of them on t.

arabic is in. she has more now on the latest situation in the syrian enclave. how much any economics the second day of the troops we haven't seen any civilians walking through the corridor it is known that there are many civilians who want to leave their own place to leave it for the one and only korea there were open for civilians from guta however militants prevent civilians from exiting and don't allow them to leave due to only evacuation route to reach the road to damascus the militant positions are just three or four hundred meters from the corridor or near the campus are offered in the syrian government has distributed leaflets a monster brilliance of the militant controlled and place with detailed information and a map on how to get into the area on the government control you can see that everything is ready here to receive civilians and to deal with any difficulty military and situation. we spoke earlier to professor of political sociology to decide sadik the

american university of colorado he believes it's the us this fueling tension in syria by supplying very solemn groups with weaponry. for always playing with fire the one who was doing that was fun is all it was for voting weapons who was providing similar is who is financing them who is caught by the media coverage for them. and trying to show that that what is happening is. a must sardar is a big must let go of innocent people what they care about is those whom they have supplied all whom they have finances who they have been breathing in the last few years and now the up lost the war but they don't have the same quality to admit that they lost the water was do they just keep on bargaining making all those claims. the russian olympic committee has confirmed that it has been reinstated as an official member of the international olympic committee on the senate every two

to has the details this is big news from russia as we all know the country has been at the center of a long running doping scandal accused of state sponsored cheating and the repercussions of that have been huge one of the biggest was russia being kicked out of the international olympic committee the i.o.c. so this latest decision to reinstate it to the club is a key milestone as the head of the russian olympic committee points out. read the statement was tied to the full doping check of russian athletes who participated in the winter olympics the letter we received today says the i.o.c. is able to confirm all the remaining results of the olympic athletes from russia are negative. the i.o.c. has banned men to many of russia's experience their fleets were unable to compete at the winter olympics in pyongyang this meant of course that those who were allowed to compete should only do so under a neutral olympic flag and they were mainly newcomers nevertheless they won

seventeen medals overall now if we go back to the events leading up to the decision to reinstate russia to the i.o.c. there were expectations that it would have happened during the winter olympics themselves but there was a problem two russian competitors failed drug tests another consequence to those positive tests was russia being banned from waving the country's flag during the closing ceremony initially they were going to be allowed but the privilege was taken away however it's now hoped the past is behind it competitions planned to take place in russia and not in these threads. well for the concerns i'm preparing for those tournament's the rights which russia already obtained so russia is once again an active member of the international olympic committee but it is not the end of the road yet there are still two issues which remain a little filled situation of compliance was renewed rosado is still noncompliant

there's still a way to go because the russian anti doping agency restart it is still banned by the world anti-doping agency or wada we saw the last its accreditation and that is yet to be reinstated as an ongoing saga as russia disputes the legitimacy of that mclaren report which detailed russia's alleged systematic system of state sponsored doping accusations russia has always denied and wada has been insistent that to move forward russia must accept the findings of the mclaren report this is stalemate and it doesn't look like either side is yet willing to back down but for now with the i.o.c. his decision it means russia's olympic athletes will be able to compete under their own flag and play their national anthem when they win medals a huge deal for competitors and the country they represent an idea or tutor r.t. . former football an r.t. host and collymore discussed exactly this announcement with alexis the rocket he said of the two thousand and eighteen feet for world cup russia organizing

committee justice prevails that's my only emotion thing that's it's only it's only just. that after we complied with every requirement that has been put forward no matter what we think about this requirement but. russia has complied and. just as has been done to us and very happy that our athletes will now complete complete with their proper uniform and with their proper fire. they also discussed the issue with russia baseball show host alan moore who believes the focus of doping agencies one hour shift away from russia to their own respective countries to try to get back in which is good story because there are a lot of things as worth your coming out so i think that in order to quieten things down or prepare for greater waves ahead in the sports ocean that russia needs to be brought back into the fold sort of basically they could calm the situation down a little bit right now there are dissenting voices there are people who are

a little bit angry does too soon russia doesn't deserve it they would see it in any case are no punishment would be too harsh for russia from their point of view simply because as long as the russians are the bad ones their houses or seem in order but now we've got to start to look around and see who else is a little bit dirty. a south african parliament has voted in favor of new legislation that could see land from white farmers seized artie's paulus lee has the details south african parliament has backed a motion that calls for changing the constitution and allowing for land expose without compensation essentially white south africans will lose their land they will not be compensated this despite the fact that it flies in the face of the current constitution it follows the inauguration of the south african president. two weeks ago that he has said that he wants to speed up the transfer of land fine white to black south africans now despite the fact that ended two decades ago you

still have a situation in south africa where most of the land is owned by whites this is a hugely emotive subject for south africans the motion was bought in parliament by the economic freedom fighters party that it did receive the support of the ruling african national congress that holds some two thirds of the parliament the leader of the affair had this to say. the time for reconciliation is over now is the time for justice we must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land bellamy is a controversial and somewhat radical figure in south africa in the past he has said that he's not calling for the psalter of white people at least not yet in recent years there has been a spike in the killing of farmers in south africa now those who support the motion say it will go a long way to restoring justice but those who criticize us say it will do anything but there are those who say it will lead to unforeseen consequences and also will

be a scapegoat that the a.n.c. can use to explain away its own failures nonetheless it certainly seems as if we're a far way from restoring racial tensions in a country that has so much history mired in them. and glimmerglass acknowledge the problem of so-called no go zones in germany it's the first time the chances actually made such an admission with the stories peter oliver. we've seen an unexpected change of tack from uncle burkle when it comes to talk of no go areas in germany and in no there should not be any no go zones there can be no places where nobody dares to go by these zones exist and they should be named and something must be done about it. burkle hadn't previously used the same injury phrase no go area to describe parts of the country with a high crime rate but that rate has been going up the government's own figures

released earlier this year point to a ten percent rise in violent crime between twenty fifteen and twenty sixty ninety percent of which is attributed to young male refugees there was criticism of last year of the way the german media covered the refugee crisis in a highly respected group of researches said this editors acted as a public educators and that the whole refugee crisis in the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people was covered in too favorable a light. i've never doubted. that . the

only people who had been talking about no go areas were alternative for germany and they were bound mocked for doing so are common enough that's all guns are lying can you is a woman walk alone on vos show streets on a weekend evening would you do it will pause for show or nearby streets and then they say and make it look like we are the aggressive ones and say bad things about the city no what we do is look at things. in perspective what we do is simply address facts and facts only ladies and gentlemen. but here's the thing in order to secure a ruling coalition angela merkel has been trying to wean over the right wing of her concert alliance should try to secure that for the chancellor she may well be thinking that taking a step towards the social policy of alternative to germany could help get those hardliners back onside with her peter all of our party berman.

german media claims it's the biggest cities there are are the worst affected with criminals taking over entire neighborhoods police have come under physical assault in such areas which are reportedly run by ethnic gangs political scientist says some neighborhoods are no longer recognizable. no longer the case is that every person can move freely around just as he or in particular she wants because we hear of neighborhoods insidious which look not like being in germany but like in a different country if you look at some cities like the northern parts of or of door to more like parts of deuce books like parts of the lean in for some neighborhoods it's really a problem in this truth is locked right they'll come to be frank i'm disappointed we have the same problem arising out of drug criminality but immigration is

a part of the whole problematic to an argument. united states government may be granted the opportunity to access data that stored in other countries a case between the government and microsoft is currently being heard by the u.s. supreme court and this all started five years ago when microsoft refused to hand over to author of things e-mails that related to a drug trafficking investigation it claims that the data was stored on servers that are physically located in an island and u.s. law does not stretch outside its own borders but washington argues as the tech giant is an american company it should provide the data microsoft says that if it loses foreign states would then have the right to access data that's based in the u.s. the tech giant claims the credibility of all companies is at stake. the reality is that people will not use technology they do not trust we need to sustain their trust and part of sustaining their trust is giving people confidence that their legal rights under their legal systems will in fact be respected including by the

united states. ok let's discuss this in more detail now i'm joined on the line by political activist george barda poor violet's see. scroope international to you first of all paul what should we be worried about here if microsoft loses the case what are the implications well you know the issue that microsoft is pounding on is this in the this alleged constitutional right to privacy in the united states and that's that's the one thing that people keep going back and forth on is the right to privacy the right to privacy. i personally and the way that we really need to be looking into this is we need to find a balance and the balance needs to be between privacy and communicating in a manner in which people feel you know is unfettered and then looking at the right of the responsibility of government to protect against groups such as isis that are

using mediums such as that to plan direct train terrorist attacks so there has to be a balance between the two ok george i mean it's an obvious argument many people will make if you've got nothing to hide what's the concern but there will be an argument and sure you'll give it to. i think that the key issue speaking from from europe is that you know and many other places that there have been extended struggles over the very sort of vexed and i think what will be an increasingly important question of privacy on the internet and what the judgment if it goes with the justice and would mean is that. the result of those struggles in terms of domestic legal frameworks that are designed to protect online users privacy will then essentially just be ridden roughshod over by the judgement and now it's the. piece of legislation coming into the congress potentially called the cloud act which might make all of this moot and it may be that congress decides in passing that law. that that's ok in the government can do that anyway but certainly

speaking from a sort of international point of view to have a court decision that makes a mockery of you know years long struggles to protect internet privacy is a major problem is that something that just mentioned paul perhaps the biggest problem that legislation is just so well it doesn't it hasn't caught up with the internet and with the cloud and that this needs a legal update. i believe that george is completely on point without question and no one that's going to look at this prudently is going to say that the government should have unfettered access to to to the internet and as well oh you know we know we must safeguard our right to be able to communicate over the internet with a certain degree of privacy and with significant privacy or even go so far as to say but the fact remains that government needs to take a stronger role in monitoring certain activity on the internet and in social media

if we are going to try try to stay in line and somewhat ahead if we can with groups such as isis al shabaab boko hogan that are using the internet and are using social media as a high way of transporting information to plan and execute terrorist attacks so it's a matter of creating a balance between as jord said that internet privacy and the ability to communicate as well as the government's right to be able to monitor preemptively to protect society in general george what about that argument because you know some people might argue that terrorists are winning the battle when it comes to organizing attacks in major cities very hard to stop them doing so wouldn't this be a very useful weapon for the lower authorities. i mean as i understand it there are there are far more there are many sort of covert means of communicating effectively online if you want to that wouldn't be touched by this judgment in the

particular case the issue the irish government has been very clear that it would have it had there been a request from the justice department for the information that is stored on these servers in ireland they would absolutely have responded by releasing that by releasing that data and i mean the u.k. for instance has recently signed what's called a. mutual legal assistance treaty so that you know thirty's in the u.k. and the u.s. can coordinate on these matters but i think it's you know in a world where you know yes you know it's arguably multi-polar world with the rising power of china et cetera but the u.s. is effectively still the kind of imperial power and and given the people across the world are using social media most of you know most of the major companies for which are based in the u.s. judgments like this if it goes the wrong way would essentially mean the anybody using a u.s. social media account can essentially just have all their data immediately accessed by the u.s. justice department and as we know from the revelations of edward snowden and others

there are huge questions to be asked in terms of the legitimacy and of of us snooping and the interested are being served and certainly as a political activist that has genuine cause to fear governments essentially using internet spying to undermine effective democratic dissent i think this is a really important issue that that needs to be kept at the forefront of the discussion let's bring it all in all it's not a long way from a judge because i think it's really good point you've made. paul isn't big brother here it is if it goes their way this will be the u.s. government will be big brother you've got microsoft make computers that make phones that make tablets all the other big us social media giants appeal to just pick and choose which of anybody in the world information they want to delve into go through anyone's sordid details and secrets that they thought were private they thought was secretly hidden in a in a cloud that's actually not a cloud it'll. george race is

a legitimate concern and no matter what side of the argument that you are on with this that's a legitimate concern and whenever you empower government to the extent that they have the ability they meaning any government in this case we're talking about the united states govern we can talk about anybody because all governments are just all government snoop it's just we've been doing it for hundreds of years but it's important to understand that what we're looking to do with this is not to have complete unfettered as i said before access to the internet but enough access so that there are key words phrases documents pictures etc that will be used for algorithmically to detect issues in instances preemptively that law enforcement that military that government can intervene on it's not a carte blanche decision to say ok now you have complete access to to the internet to social media but to give them access so that they can on a regular basis have certain things come up with certain things are said certain

things have communicated pictures presented where they can intervene at that point and look at you through our various. search warrants and go into the court and getting permission to want to go back to george george you just wonder woman and i just want to put that to you so if we're leaving it to the discretion of big internet companies and the u.s. government both of whom let's be honest of let us down when it comes to privacy and telling the truth in the past can we trust. i mean i think my fellow debater it's raising generally significant points about when it's appropriate for law enforcement to be able to access information but i think there are there of very large questions going forward in that the internet offers possibilities for snooping on virtually every single aspect of anybody's interaction with any other individual on the planet and any decision that essentially opens the floodgates

into a sort of free for all why governments on the basis of the idea that they're doing something worthwhile can look at anything they want i think apologize george you're going to have to run if you're afraid we're out of time i wish we could go longer but apologies political activist george barda poor viola see violence group international many thanks guys. and that wraps it up i'll see you in half an hour. from north korea to syria's president donald trump's foreign policy is literally all over the map north korea says it is open to direct talks with washington only to be met with preconditions in syria peace is within view but this is not what the trumpet ministration wants.